AG survey: 170 untested rape kits in Story County

Law enforcement agencies in Story County have about 170 untested rape kits in their possession, according to a statewide survey by the Iowa Attorney General’s office.

According to the Legislature-mandated survey, law enforcement agencies across the state have 4,265 untested kits in their possession. About 19 percent of kits have gone untested because victims have declined to file charges, while about 15 percent of kits weren’t tested due to law enforcement doubts over the truthfulness of the accusation.

Among kits held by the Ames Police Department, Iowa State Department of Public Safety and the Story County Sheriff’s Office, about 32 percent went untested because the victim declined to file charges, while 15 percent of victims had a kit done, but declined to meet with police for an interview.

About 15 percent of kits held by the three agencies haven’t been tested because police identified the suspect, prosecutors declined to ask for analysis or the case was dismissed.

Ames Police Cmdr. Geoff Huff said many rape kits are never sent to the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation’s labs because victims, who are allowed to decide whether or not to pursue an investigation, decline to move forward.

He said law enforcement agencies send in rape kits for analysis only if it has an active criminal investigation. If departments sent in every kit they collected, Huff said it would only further strain a state lab that is already overwhelmed with samples for active cases.

“That’s the part that’s gotten missed,” Huff said. “It makes it sound like police departments have made some decision to not send some kits, and that’s not what happened. We haven’t sent them in because there’s no investigation.”

Ames police will occasionally send in materials if the case involves rape by a stranger, such as the sexual assault at Franklin Park from January, even if the victim doesn’t want an investigation.

“It has the characteristics of what could possibly be a serial rapist,” he said. “We don’t know for sure, but we would definitely send that in regardless.”

About 10 percent of the untested kits in the county were collected anonymously. Huff said the Ames Police Department has agreements with Mary Greeley Medical Center and Iowa State’s Thielen Student Health Center to allow the health facilities to collect anonymous kits using a number system, which can be used later if the victim decides to ask for an investigation.

Under state law, law enforcement agencies are required to keep kits for 10 years after an adult is raped and 10 years after the 18th birthday of an underage victim. Iowa also has a separate law adding a three-year statute of limitations if investigators discover a previously unknown perpetrator through DNA evidence.

Huff said victims can ask police to start an investigation using their stored kit even if they decide not to go forward immediately after their attack. He said the collected evidence, like all forensic evidence, degrades over time. The speed of the degradation depends mostly on how much and what types of material is in the kit. Huff noted the likelihood of a victim asking for an investigation a year or so after an assault is rare.

The timeframe between sending in a rape kit and getting results also varies depending on how many kits are already being tested at DCI, which could affect how quickly police could make an arrest or how quickly a prosecutor can bring charges.

Huff said he supports increases in funding to give law enforcement, prosecutors and victims faster access to results from kits.

“We’d all like the ability to send these kits in and get them processed and get them back in a timely fashion,” he said. “There’s only so many people and so many hours in the day.”

The Iowa Department of Public Safety is expected to take a $1.75 million budget cut in the next fiscal year. Bruce Reeve, director of the Iowa DCI Criminalistics Laboratory, said the lab is expected to absorb $100,000 of the overall cut to the department, which amounts to around 1.5 percent of the lab’s budget.

He said the cuts shouldn’t have much of an effect on the lab’s day-to-day operations. However, it doesn’t help reduce the just under 4,000 requests for all types of evidence analysis in its backlog. Reeve said estimates from last December show about 300 untested lab kits are awaiting analysis at the lab.

Reeve couldn’t say exactly how many more resources the lab would need to close the backlog, but said any extra support would help close it more quickly.

“It certainly would take more [full-time equivalent positions] to do it, but it hasn’t been something we’ve been able to ask for,” he said.